This large, isolated hill is a famous site where prehistoric Indians gathered to quarry a particularly attractive quartzite for the manufacture of chipped stone tools. Several aboriginal quarries are scattered along the rim rock of this mound. Thousands of tons of waste rock from these pits indicated that quarrying was carried on selectively over many centuries.

Fields surrounding this mound are littered with quartzite fragments and flakes which accumulated during the process of making and shaping trade blanks for transportation to out lying areas. Stone spear points, knives, and scrapers made from this colorful material have a wide distribution throughout Wisconsin and portions of nearby states.

It is known that the earliest Indians who migrated into the Midwest, perhaps 10-12,000 years ago, made many spear points and knives from rock quarried here; thus this site is one of Wisconsin's oldest archaeological monuments. History relates that the first white explorers mistakenly thought that the Indians were mining silver. Hence the name "Silver Mound."

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